Feedback talk:User/Soldier198/Under Powered Skill Balance

Ruine's feedback²

Good initiative. I want to help you, but I don't know how to do it peacefully, so here are my two cents :

1. Isn't this kind of too long ? Even the intro takes 14 lines. Do you think an anet developer will read all ?
   • If you need a draft you can use the talk page.
2. Without comparison between the current skill and the new one, how do we know what must be changed ? It's a bit annoying having to check the original skill's page everytime.
3. I read "I try my best to evaluate a skill as objectively as possible" in the intro, but then " Ghostmirror Light is a mediocre skill apt to sit on a players bar for a long period of time", "Defiant Was Xinrae is a rather lackluster skill", "I like the idea of this skill very much". Which is it ?
4. What's a "soft battery" ? What's "AoE" ? Will an anet developer understand those ?
5. Aren't the problem's cause and usage sometimes the same ? If skill A is weaker than skill B because of certain reasons, an upgraded skill A will be more used than skill B because of those same reasons ?

Some thoughts :

• There are a lot of similar pages in the feedbacks. Maybe good ideas to fish for ?
• In general I think this kind of page would get better if we could somehow manage to engage more players in them, allowing them to suggest ideas with their name for the recognition. We could get a few good ideas this way, plus a collective feedback is more known and wields more weight.
• It's easier to buff a skill indirectly by buffing a skill that synergizes with it. For instance, if we buff Lacerate, we buff Bleeding which buffs Melandru's Arrows. If we buff Symbolic Posture, we may buff Signet of Strength. Etc.
• Even better is to change a skill's functionality to add something truly unique that doesn't exist in the game yet, and that will make several skills better at the same time.
  • What if Punishing Shot removed shouts ?
  • What if Mist Form made elemental enchantments cast instantly, recharge 50% and cause AoE heal for 400% of their energy cost ?
  • What if ...

Anyway, thanks for your hard work so far, good brainstorming !--Ruine Eternelle 15:03, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Hey Ruine, thanks for the feedback.

"Isn't this kind of too long ? Even the intro takes 14 lines. Do you think an anet developer will read all ?"

It likely is too long. I didn't split it into subpages because I would've had to make 8 different feedback pages, one for each profession represented on the current page. The expositions I give for each skill are lengthy; it's natural for me to write a lot, but it also feels necessary to explain thoroughly what can be improved and how to improve it, instead of just offering up a blanket statement. I've read some other feedback pages, and something I see quite often that feels wrong to do is to simply state "this skill is bad, no one uses it. Do this instead." It doesn't offer up much of a reason.

"Without comparison between the current skill and the new one, how do we know what must be changed ? It's a bit annoying having to check the original skill's page everytime."

If you're not already familiar with what a skill does on the page, then you'll just have to click the link to it and read it. It'd simply be a lot if I listed the skill in its current version, and then showed the suggested version. It would take up a lot of space.

"I read "I try my best to evaluate a skill as objectively as possible" in the intro, but then " Ghostmirror Light is a mediocre skill apt to sit on a players bar for a long period of time", "Defiant Was Xinrae is a rather lackluster skill", "I like the idea of this skill very much". Which is it ?"

I try to be objective but this feedback page is still an opinionated list. I'm offering suggestions from my point of view only because I can only play and understand the game from my own perspective, so all the material here stems inherently from my own opinion of what needs to be changed. That said, though you've picked those quotes of mine from the page, I never leave a skill with a single sentence saying "this skill is average" or the likes. I try and discuss more specifically what the problem is, and oftentimes I cross compare the problem skill with similar or competing skills.

"What's a "soft battery" ? What's "AoE" ? Will an anet developer understand those ?"

"Aren't the problem's cause and usage sometimes the same ? If skill A is weaker than skill B because of certain reasons, an upgraded skill A will be more used than skill B because of those same reasons ?"

Terms like AoE and battery should be understood well enough by the developers. They're common terms in videogames to describe certain effects. When it comes to buffing skill A to better compare with skill B, this is something that needs to be done carefully. If skill A is made so much better than skill B that players simply never use skill B anymore, then you've essentially limited player choice and reduced the options for playing the game, which shouldn't be the goal of balancing. In a game like Guild Wars, I think we all want to have more options with which to play the game, and players have a tendency to understand that if some way of playing is "better" than another, they're going to use what's most effective. You see plenty of Soul Twisting ritualists, but none or few Reclaim Essence ritualists, and it's because the players understand that Soul Twisting is in the majority of cases a better to skill to use. If we can improve Reclaim Essence to a level where it is a viable option over Soul Twisting, but does not replace it in its own right, then we add another choice for the player in terms of how they want to play the game, which should hopefully translate into a better experience overall.

"In general I think this kind of page would get better if we could somehow manage to engage more players in them, allowing them to suggest ideas with their name for the recognition. We could get a few good ideas this way, plus a collective feedback is more known and wields more weight."

A collective feedback page would be interesting, and there sort of already is one on the Guild Wars reddit. However that page is specific to mostly quality of life suggestions. A skill based feedback page would have to be done differently, and preferably not on the userpage of one individual.

"Even better is to change a skill's functionality to add something truly unique that doesn't exist in the game yet, and that will make several skills better at the same time"

Sometimes I make suggestions to change a skills functionality entirely, but I never suggest something that hasn't already been done before. The reasoning for this is as follows: If Arenanet were to ever come back to this game and decide to release a balance patch, it's probably easier for them to implement things that already have a precedent in the games systems, this way they can look back at how it was done and reimplement it in a different way. To make brand new functionalities that interact with the game in ways that have never been done before is something that will likely require much more work than just numbers changes. Look at a skill like Healing Light. I think most everyone can agree it needs to heal for more when Monks have other skills like Healing Burst, Word of Healing, and in PvE stuff like Unyielding Aura or Healer's Boon. I can't say for certain that it would take less effort to simply open up the games code and do a numbers change on how much Healing Light heals for because I am not a programmer, and I don't know Arenanets systems for updating Guild Wars, but I will say that I believe it's an easier change to make compared to simply revamping Healing Light with a new, unprecedented functionality.

Anyhow, thanks again for the feedback Ruine. Always good to hear from you. - Soldier198